Little by little, Darcy grew to feel at home in her grandmother’s house. When September came, she started school, and her life fell into a regular pattern. Every afternoon, she returned to the place she had left that morning. She really was at home.
Darcy’s father never came to visit, and Darcy didn’t miss him—how could she miss someone she’d seldom seen? Lala visited once a month, when the weather permitted an easy passage across Nantucket Sound. After she married her architect—without inviting Darcy to the service—she came less often.
It didn’t matter. Darcy’s grandmother invited her to call her Penny, and for her first Christmas on the island, Penny surprised Darcy with a kitten. Nickel, Darcy named her, an odd name for a cat, but a kind of homage to Penny.
For the first few years of her life on the island, Darcy spent a good deal of time with her grandmother. She helped Penny tend her garden. She joined her for long walks on the many beaches or in the extensive inland moors. She accompanied Penny to the library, the local bookstores, and the island’s concerts.
When Darcy made friends at school, she was allowed to bring them over to play in her room, as long as they played quietly, or even in the garden, as long as they stayed away from the flowers. Half of Darcy’s friends had divorced parents with lives much more intrusive and hostile than Darcy’s, which helped Darcy feel better.
Eventually, Darcy’s father married a woman named Jean and moved to Florida. Lala divorced her architect and moved to Santa Fe. When Darcy first saw a picture of the birth of Venus she nodded her head in recognition. That was how she felt she’d arrived on this earth: alone, parentless, in the middle of the sea of life, with all the stability of a shell floating on a rocky sea. But just as there was a nurturing figure in the painting, her grandmother was there to receive her, to welcome her to the security of the island.
When Darcy was around sixteen, things changed. Darcy changed. Her hormones kicked in, her figure hour-glassed, and she wanted to flirt with boys. She wanted to kiss boys. She wanted…what most teenagers wanted.
While Darcy was getting faster, her grandmother was getting slower and a touch crabby and more of a disciplinarian. She gave Darcy a curfew. She took down the names of Darcy’s friends—in case, she explained, something happened to her and she needed to get in touch with her immediately. Darcy knew she was only pretending to be worried that she might fall and hurt herself and the ambulance would come, and she’d be whisked to the hospital, where the nurse would ask for her next of kin, and she’d gasp out, “My granddaughter, Darcy, but I don’t know where she is!” She thought Penny was truly anxious for herself. After all, she was seventy-six, edging toward old age. But she was also energetic and strong and she could still work like a longshoreman in her garden. The truth was, Darcy guessed, that Penny wanted to keep tabs on Darcy.
Secretly, Darcy was grateful for that. It made her feel safe to have Penny watching over her. Possibly it prevented Darcy from doing anything really stupid. She waited until she was older to do that.
When Darcy turned seventeen, she took a job in a boutique to make money for college. That was the year Penny’s age began to catch up with her. Her left hip hurt her whenever she moved, and she refused to see a doctor, insisting it was only arthritis and taking aspirin for the pain. She still worked in her garden, but often Darcy would look out the window to see Penny holding her hip as she walked or sitting on a bench, bent double, rubbing her hands together as if to press away the ache. At last Darcy persuaded Penny to visit Dr. Ruby, who diagnosed Lyme disease, caused by the bite of a minuscule insect, the tick. If it had been caught early, antibiotics would have cured Penny, but her own stubbornness had brought her an enormous loss in quality of life. Penny took painkillers, but she was constantly fatigued and suffering pain in all her joints. She was seventy-seven, and Lyme disease aged her by decades.
Darcy did everything she could to help Penny. She bought all the groceries, cooked all the meals, and cleaned the house. She got stacks of DVDs from the library—Penny was often too tired to read—and once Darcy earned her driver’s license, she took Penny for excursions around the island in Penny’s valiant old Jeep.
Bravely, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Darcy offered to forgo college and stay home with Penny. Penny burst into laughter and promised she would disown Darcy if she dared to even think of such a thing. The next day, Darcy found Penny on the phone in the kitchen; and within twenty-four hours, Penny had hired a woman to come five days a week to clean house and cook Penny a decent hot meal. She also agreed to take the antidepressants her physician had prescribed. By the time Darcy left for college, Penny was much more active and cheerful. Maybe it was all an act, Darcy thought, but Penny had made her point.
College life at UMass/Boston suited Darcy perfectly—no surprise because she was surrounded by books and people who talked about what was in those books. She majored in English literature and by her junior year realized she wanted to attend Simmons for a master’s degree in library science. Penny was thrilled. Darcy called her often and hurried back to check on her during long school holidays. She spent the holidays and summers with her, and Penny was slower, but in good spirits.
The time came when Penny could no longer hide or ignore her frustratingly merciless body. No assisted living facility existed on the island, except one that Penny called Death’s Waiting Room. She had made herself fairly adept at the computer and found and compared the various assisted living facilities on the Cape. One weekend, Darcy accompanied her grandmother to the ferry across Nantucket Sound and drove her to Sea View Village, which amazingly had a view of the sea. To Darcy’s surprise, Penny felt at home from the moment she saw it, or did an Oscar-winning act of pretending to. With relief, Penny settled in with others like her who were also withered, weakened, and dependent on the charming and capable doctors, nurses, and nurses’ aides.